The Impact of Opinion Leaders in Information Dissemination in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the Study
Apart from being practical useful in itself in showing how the attribute of the role of opinion leaders’ dissemination of vital information, the study is aimed at the following objectives;
- To examine the impact of opinion leader in Owo township
- To show that opinion leader is an important means of disseminating information in community.
- To show that opinion leader builds mutual understanding between. The mass media and the community.
- To identify way by which opinion leader diffusion information and idea to the people in rural area.
- To identify the impact of information disseminated by opinion leader on people of the society.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Theoretical Framework
Severin and Tankard (1982), defines a theory as “a set of ideas of systematic generalizations based on scientific observation (and) leading to further empirical observation”. Maclean (1972) defines it simpler as, “our understanding of the way things work” while McQuail (1987) defines it as “a set ideas of varying status and origin which may explain or interpret some phenomenon”. Thus this study adopts two theoretical basis and that is the two-step flow and the diffusion of innovation theory.
The Two Step Flow Theory
Anetor et al. (2008), et.al provide the following summations:
- Individuals act as members of definable social groups rather than as isolates.
- The perception of opinion leaders tend to affect (or colour) the message and influence of the mass media.
- Perceptions and activities of the social groups to which an individual belongs influences the reaction to mass media messages.
- Due to influence of social relationships, attention to media messages by the individual does not imply his/ her acceptance of media influences, neither does non-attention imply rejection.
- Individuals do not have the same behaviour towards the mass media – some (opinion leaders) are active users while others (followers) rely on more personal contacts for information carried by the mass media. The two-step theory is based on the assumption that information from the media flows in two distinct stages. First, it says there are individuals who pay close attention to mass media messages from where they receive first hand information. These individuals are called opinion leaders. The opinion leaders are the well-informed people who relay information to others through informal, interpersonal communication. In the society there are opinion leaders, people who are more aware of what is happening in the society. People listen to and look unto the for information and they are called opinion leaders in a community. They believe their that messages flow from the mass media and the first people to receive it are the opinion leaders before the majority of the audience. The opinion leaders are the local leaders who are more versed in the things happening in the community (Ifedayo, 2003).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we described the research procedure for this study. A research methodology is a research process adopted or employed to systematically and scientifically present the results of a study to the research audience viz. a vis, the study beneficiaries.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Research designs are perceived to be an overall strategy adopted by the researcher whereby different components of the study are integrated in a logical manner to effectively address a research problem. In this study, the researcher employed the survey research design. This is due to the nature of the study whereby the opinion and views of people are sampled. According to Singleton & Straits, (2009), Survey research can use quantitative research strategies (e.g., using questionnaires with numerically rated items), qualitative research strategies (e.g., using open-ended questions), or both strategies (i.e., mixed methods). As it is often used to describe and explore human behaviour, surveys are therefore frequently used in social and psychological research.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the analysis of data derived through the questionnaire and key informant interview administered on the respondents in the study area. The analysis and interpretation were derived from the findings of the study. The data analysis depicts the simple frequency and percentage of the respondents as well as interpretation of the information gathered. A total of eighty (80) questionnaires were administered to respondents of which only seventy-seven (77) were returned and validated. This was due to irregular, incomplete and inappropriate responses to some questionnaire. For this study a total of 77 was validated for the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain The Impact of Opinion Leaders in Information Dissemination in Nigeria. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of the Impact of Opinion Leaders in Information Dissemination in Nigeria
Summary
This study was on the Impact of Opinion Leaders in Information Dissemination in Nigeria. Four objectives were raised which included; To examine the impact of opinion leader in Owo township, to show that opinion leader is an important means of disseminating information in community, to show that opinion leader builds mutual understanding between. The mass media and the community, to identify way by which opinion leader diffusion information and idea to the people in rural area and to identify the impact of information disseminated by opinion leader on people of the society. A total of 77 responses were received and validated from the enrolled participants where all respondents were drawn from CBN. Hypothesis was tested using Chi-Square statistical tool (SPSS).
Conclusion
In conclusion, recent developments in political communication, including the popularization of politics and the introduction of new technologies, lead inevitably to questions about the meaning and the purposes of opinion leadership in contemporary democracies. As the discussion on bloggers as possible opinion leaders has shown, there is a notable divergence in the notion of opinion leadership between different scholars, a clear indicator of the need for clarification and further conceptualization of the concept of opinion leadership. What clearly emerges from the above discussion is that Katz and Lazarsfeld‟s notion of opinion leader has to be somehow revised and integrated. As argued above, the new characteristics of the political context and in particular of contemporary political discussion networks, suggest that the latest ones are no more the cohesive groups of the past, but should rather be conceived as webs of relationships that may also be loose and volatile. Often, even people talking frequently to each other, sometimes trusting each other, are not influenced by reciprocal and recurrent interactions, because they are embedded in highly divergent informational contexts which provide resources to reduce vulnerability to other people’s views. In such a framework, to think of opinion leaders as people who are more interested and informed, who acquire and maintain credibility and trust over time in a stable circle of relatives and acquaintances, is clearly too restrictive and unrealistic. In order to understand and classify new opinion leaders, the first step is to broaden the notion of opinion leadership to accommodate all such new developments. This means that, although empirical analyses in the field should be promoted and intensified, the first step of a research agenda should be to elaborate a conceptual mapping of the relevant characteristics of an opinion leader.
Recommendation
- My tentative suggestion is that the nature of opinion leadership may well vary depending on different political fields and especially on different communication environments. As we have seen, offline and online communications retain different features that may produce different underlying processes of influence.
- There is the need to incorporate the impact of the social media into the concept of opinion leadership in order to ascertain how well opinion leaders are in exercise. This is because there are more persons who influence from afar, outside of Owo community and their decisions and influence could be far reaching than what those within Owo community would achieve.
- It is clear that all channels of reaching the audience in Owo are not fully utilized to help achieve the best outcomes, such as the Town hall meetings in particular and there is the need to see how these avenues could be properly utilizes for the good of society.
- In bringing about the needed development or changes in the society, using Owo community, more need to be done and less said as government officials need to make conscientious efforts in helping advance public enlightenment campaigns better.
- People should understand that a lot depends on them for society to succeed and everyone has an influence on another whether they call them opinion leaders or not. The implication is that we are all opinion leaders and certain levels and we all have persons we can influence so let’s be positive, seek information and other resources and then make it happen in the good of society
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